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This thesis examines how Russian migrant women construct their national identities through the mothering practices they perform in Finland. This research is based on an intersectional approach as it studies how migration and motherhood relate to the complex negotiations of the national identities of Russian women in Finland. Theoretically, this study aims to contribute to the feminist perspective by exploring the complexity and intersectionality of Russian women’s national, gender, and parental identities in migration. Methodologically, this study relies on a biographical approach in the analysis of migration experiences. The primary material of this research consists of in-depth focused interviews based on biographical narratives. A total of 17 interviews were conducted with Russian migrant mothers both through face-to-face and online interviewing during August and September 2022. This research revealed various ways in which Russian migrant mothers construct their national identities through their mothering practices in Finland. The key findings focus on the experiences and strategies of Russian migrant mothers in maintaining translocal family connections, constructing national identities, and navigating motherhood in Finland. Thus, the research situated Russian women’s everyday mothering practices into a complex translocal context where they navigate their multiple identities while living in Finland. Moreover, the study provided data on the challenges and emotional responses of Russian migrant mothers to the war in Ukraine, including the ways in which mothers seek to hide their Russianness and highlight their children’s dominant non-Russian identity.

This thesis explores how a university department, Creation Mine (CM), constructs creativity and seeks serendipity through communality within Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. Through their daily aspirations of low bureaucracy and anti-structure, the Mine community oppose the university structure – even though they are a part of and reproduce the bureaucracy in their community activity. The inherent juxtaposition between the communal ideals of structurelessness and the highly structural Finnish university bureaucracy causes a plethora of contradictions within the Mine, among its employees and external university bureaucrats alike. This thesis examines precisely these moments of deviation and conflict to understand how creativity and anti-structure are pursued in the space of a structure and how such contradiction is lived through in the daily lives of bureaucrats and creative workers. This research is based on anthropological methods of ethnographical inquiry and participant observation that took place from mid-November 2021 until the end of April 2022. Through Victor Turner's theorisation of liminality and social anti-structure, communitas, I examine the cultural emblem of the community – CM's intense product development course (DCC). The DCC transformed from a university course to a rite of passage through the course rituals. The cultural values and norms of the Creation Mine manifest in the DCC – it is a performance and spectacle of the whole community. Hence, the course's liminal values of emotional connection, equality, and humility are deemed inherently normative within the community. They are pursued, fortified and – notably – disrupted in the Miners' daily work life. Such liminal ideals are imperatively opposed to the university bureaucracy and cause social friction within the Mine. The idealisation of liminality creates a space for informal power structures and membership standards to form. Due to the informal rhetorics and organisation style, such standards and power structures remain obscure and ambivalent – even for the Mine members. Hence, informal standards become exclusionary determinants within the emotional community and, by extension, the workplace. The American-style performative informality, combined with the underlying Finnish bureaucracy and the multinational staff, renders the community's informal and formal power structures distorted and even invisible. The co-existent and contrasting organisational logics cause misunderstandings, frustration and informal grouping within the Mine, creating continual ambivalence among the staff. However, the community's emotional dwelling is not organised solely through structureless ambitions but under charismatic authority. Utilising the classic ideal types of Max Weber, I examine the conflicting charismatic and legal authority structures within the Mine. As the community congregates under its charismatic leader, denying bureaucratic structures from the communal space causes friction between the Creation Mine and external university bureaucrats. Regardless, the Miners must be able to collaborate with their external colleagues, despite the seemingly mutual prejudice towards each other. Thus, personal politics, familialism and play are utilised to render the external bureaucrats at least tolerable and cooperation possible. Thus, in their daily work life, The Miners must manoeuvre between many different and contrasting authority structures and ideals of structurelessness to find belonging in the communal space and workplace.

The aim of this research is to identify and compare how Posti (as the employer of an ethnically diverse workforce) and PAU (as the labour union representing a constantly diversifying field) construct new postal workforce diversities. The once respected and fairly well paid civil service offices of postal officers have turned into low-paid, low-skilled, often part-time work, which is failing to attract ethnic-Finn employees. As a result, migrant workers have infiltrated postal warehouse work, daytime mail delivery and especially early morning delivery. The rapid entrance of non-ethnic Finns into the field has forced Posti and PAU to consider, how they wish to approach the growing diversity of their workforce. This research examines these approaches. Articles from Posti’s personnel magazine and PAU’s membership magazine form the empirical basis for this research. Altogether 24 articles, 12 from each magazine, were chosen based on their relevance to the topic of ethnic diversity and migrant workforce. The material was collected from publications that were released between January 2014 and August 2017. Acker’s (2006) theoretical framework of “inequality regimes” in organizations serves as the core theory as well as the methodological tool for this research. The theoretical and methodological concept of frame analysis is also used to further help understand, how Posti and PAU are able to explain and justify existing inequalities in the data. A critical discourse analytical approach is present throughout the research, from the initial reading and coding of the material to the presentation of the results. The critical analysis of the selected material suggests that Posti and PAU approach the growing diversity of postal workforce in very different ways. Posti presents the diversification of the workforce as a necessary and positive change, which will help the company expand the personnel’s skillset and even increase its financial results. Ethnic diversity and increased migrant workforce is discussed in a thoroughly positive light in the personnel magazine of Posti. Migrant workers’ lack of Finnish language skills is the only negativity of the ethnically diverse workforce of Posti, which is brought up in the material. The poor Finnish skills of migrant workers are also stressed in the membership magazine of the union, but the union is also concerned with Posti’s unfair treatment of the migrant workforce. On one hand, PAU stresses the necessity to include migrant workers into the Finnish working life and on the other hand, PAU stresses the possible culture clashes this might generate. The core finding of this research is that the way diversity is approached is closely related to the objectives and aims of the organization in question. Posti very purposefully aims to construct a new cohesive workforce diversity, which focuses on the possibilities of diversity and actively aims to hide existing inequalities. Posti still relies heavily on manual labour to carry out its core services, and therefore, it is in its interest to portray diversity in a positive light. The approach that PAU takes towards diversity in its membership magazine, is far less coherent and purposeful than that of Posti. It shows concern for the potential mistreatment of Posti’s migrant workers but fails to take a stand on the position of migrant workers within the field. This research concludes that PAU is still unsure of its approach towards the new diversities of postal work. On one hand, its mission has always been to protect the terms and conditions of the employees, to which the entrance of migrant workers into the field poses a threat, but on the other hand, one of the key values of the labour movement has always been solidarity. So far, PAU is still trying to fulfil both objectives, which results in inconsistent and limited views of what the diversification of the workforce means for postal work.

The thesis construes the cultural field of transitology from the point of view of its historical development and characteristics. Transitology specifically and transition studies generally mushroomed in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union. Transitology is a specific term for a field of transition studies to which particular attributes are controversially connected. These attributes include nomotheticity, ahistoricity, positivism and determinism. Of interest is the fact, that transitology represents a field of academia concerned with guiding policy recommendations in a process that aimed to democratize and market liberalize post-socialist countries in Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union. This instigated a close connection between the social scientific debates and actual policy. The thesis advances in a twofold manner to investigate the effects of the connections and historical factors behind the nature and applicability of transitology. First, it constructs a historical narrative of the developments of social sciences, transition studies, socialist social sciences and post-socialist space. Through different conjunctures each of these levels brought about its own meaning to the manner in which transitology consolidated its existence. Secondly, the thesis observes the form and nature of the relation of transitological research to its own premises and to its subject matter. A historical and radical perspective of social scientific thought is applied to detect the form of the relations. These perspectives are mainly world-systems analysis and the political economy of Stephen Gill. The relations under observation are then set into a wider context of social sciences and cultural competition with the help of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological thought. Academic labour is perceived analogously to a Marxist perspective of labour as a social process. The thesis concludes transitology to have attained specific character for a variety of reasons. In general these reasons are seen to stem from an interaction of the state of social scientific thought in the late 80s and early 90 and the historical state of the post-socialist space. Observing the effects and developments occurring from this interplay, the thesis claims transitological thought to have consolidated itself as a constituting cleavage of the post-socialist cultural and political space rather than dissolved into a myriad of approaches. In such a situation, in which a dislodgment between the temporal and spatial dimensions of the cultural field of research and academia and the object if its study has occurred, it becomes vehemently important to focus on the relation and type of research conducted and its direct and indirect implications to its subject matter.

The master’s thesis examines the impact of the petroleum industry in the Niger Delta. The theoretical premise is that corporations have decisively established structural power over the nationstate system, using developmentalism as a blueprint. As a result, power is becoming less accountable to egalitarian or even representative political institutions, and increasingly reacts only to stimuli that threaten revenues. It is UI the corporate nature to place profits before people unless the former are threatened. What means are available to the people of the Niger Delta to do so? How can the industry’s reaction be interpreted? The thesis presents ethnographically derived theoretical views of the state and corporate capitalism, to provide a basis for analyzing the emerging corporate social responsibility discourse. The study addresses the question, is corporate social responsibility a contradiction in terms? The thesis is primarily based on interviews conducted in the Niger Delta over three months during 2008, and references a range of relevant publications. The research presented is an acknowledgement of the contributions of anticolonialist struggles towards anthropological knowledge, and considers their contemporary relevance. The methods and theoretical focus correspond to a recent branch of anthropology known as ‘liberation ecology’. However, the text challenges the paradox of plenty narrative common to research about the Niger Delta, by acknowledging that historically, the parallel processes of elite enrichment and mass impoverishment are the standard operating procedure for the corporate institution; not an aberration. The social role of oil has allowed corporations to concentrate unprecedented wealth in very few hands, while causing unprecedented damage to the ecosystems that sustain all life. In Nigeria’s oil producing Niger River Delta, this disparity has provoked a regional uprising against the state-oil company alliance that demonstrates an escalating trend of direct action. The Nigerian federal government’s dependence on oil revenue is articulated by exploring the nature of its relationship to the Niger Delta region. The term ‘shell state’ is introduced to define states whose governance structures remain intact yet ineffective, and serve the individuals occupying government posts rather than the citizens of the state. It is argued that externally, shell states resemble the Weberian state model, but like shell companies, their primary function is to obscure the actual exercise of power and distribution of resources. Nigeria, as a shell state under a comparatively direct form of corporate rule, provides a model for a mo realistic understanding of how global corporations govern in practice. Analysis of the Nigerian shell state’s record leads to insights regarding how the domestic elite has been co-opted into the corporatocracy value system, the ethnicized structure of this arrangement, and the implications for the people suffering its consequences in the Niger Delta, especially regarding structural power and resource control.

This Master’s thesis examines the contested relations between extractivism and Bolivian endogenous view of ‘development’ through the case of lithium production in Bolivian Salar de Uyuni, Potosí. During the past ten years under president Evo Morales’s administration, Bolivia has introduced the concept of Vivir Bien, living well, in official state strategies replacing at least to an extent the concept of development. Vivir Bien is based on indigenous cosmologies that hold social justice, community and being one with the nature as priorities, and according to these ideals, nature should not be reduced to a commodity. But in practice dependency on extractions of natural resources in Bolivia has only increased in this time period. Lithium deposits in Bolivia are vast, and lithium is a growing industry that could be coupled with sustainable alternatives to hydrocarbon-based sources of energy. But industrialising a high-expertise raw material in a poor and fairly uneducated country such as Bolivia is a complicated endeavour. The principle methodology this research uses is semi-structured qualitative interviewing, which is complemented by critical analysis of policy documents and academic studies that connect with the topic. The empirical findings of the lithium production project unveil issues with planning, transparency and the centralisation of decision making, as well as dubiousness in regard to the environment of the area. The thesis contributes to the academic literature that has shown that while Vivir Bien is a promising and interesting alternative to development at an ideological level, in political practice it remains to a large part a rhetorical instrument and actual politics of the Morales administration can be described as neo-extractivist human development. Additionally, it offers further demonstration of the inherent contradictions within neo-extractivism as a political economic strategy. The findings also underline the significance of resource nationalism in Bolivian politics, which this research argues that functions as a bridge between seemingly incongruous Vivir Bien and extractivism.

Anti-gender movements that oppose women’s and LGBTQI+ rights have gained more support and visibility in Europe during the last ten years. These movements pose a threat to human rights as well as liberal democratic values as they depict feminist policies and the promotion of gender and sexual equality as a threatening “gender ideology”. Understanding how anti-gender discourses are constructed and employed is essential to addressing their influence in society. This Master’s thesis tackles this issue in the Finnish context. This study provides a nuanced understanding of how the notions of gender and sex are discursively constructed in the texts of a Finnish anti-gender organisation, Aito Avioliitto. Moreover, this Master’s thesis examines how the distinction constructed between gender and sex differs from the one made in feminist theory. The empirical material of this study consists of a sample of texts published on the website of Aito Avioliitto. Critical Discourse Analysis, which focuses on the relationship between language and power, is applied to analyse these texts. Moreover, the social constructionist theory of knowledge and feminist theories of gender and sex provide the theoretical framework for the analysis. The results of the analysis are categorised into three discourses: the discourse of “natural sex”, the discourse of “ideological gender” and the discourse of “deviant transgender”. Through these discourses Aito Avioliitto constructs sex as a purely biological, binary and permanent category; gender as an ideological and threatening notion that is used for immoral purposes; and transgender as deviance from normal, caused by “gender ideology”. These discourses disregard and oppose feminist theorising which has for decades problematised naturalistic attitudes concerning sex and explored the variety of sex and gender. The findings of this Master’s thesis propose that the anti-gender discourses employed by Aito Avioliitto reproduce and enforce unequal gender relations in Finnish society. Through the identified discourses, Aito Avioliitto positions people in unequal relations depending on their gender identities. Moreover, Aito Avioliitto’s discourses relate to current social struggles, such as the trans law reform. By depicting “gender ideology” and transgender as a threat to society, Aito Avioliitto legitimises neglecting trans rights in Finland.

Användningen av preventivmedel har blivit en allt viktigare fråga i utvecklingsländerna idag, speciellt i Namibia där fruktsamheten och HIV-prevalensen är höga. Kondomen är det enda allmänt tillgängliga preventivmedlet som skyddar mot könssjukdomar, medan också injektioner, p-piller och andra metoder kan användas för att förhindra graviditet. Användningen av preventivmedel har upptäckts korrelera med vissa sociodemografiska faktorer, bland annat utbildningsnivå och förmögenhet. Malet med denna undersökning var att studera användningen av preventivmedel, avsikter att använda preventivmedel samt kunskap om HIV/AIDS och andra könssjukdomar bland kvinnor i Namibia. Detta gjordes frän ett historiskt perspektiv genom att studera användningsmönster frän 1990 till slutet av 2000-talet. Dessutom undersöktes sociodemografiska faktorers, speciellt utbildningens, inverkan på användningen av preventivmedel, likaså sambandet mellan skolningsnivå och preventivmedelsanvändning på regionnivå. Undersökningen gjordes utgående frän statistiska Namibia Demographic and Health Survey -material samlade 1992, 2000 och 2006-2007. Prevalenser och användningen av specifika metoder studerades skilt för olika bakgrundsvariabler 1992, 2000 och 2006-2007, och enligt utbildningsnivå och region är 2006-2007. Utbildning mattes skilt på individ- och aggregatnivå. Sambandet mellan preventivmedelsanvändning och utbildning undersöktes med hjälp av logistisk regression, i vilken sociodemografiska bakgrundsfaktorer kontrollerades i sex modeller. Resultaten visade att användningen av preventivmedel har fördubblats sedan början av 1990-talet. Skillnader mellan kvinnor med olika utbildningsnivåer existerade redan i början av 1990-talet, likaså mellan olika yrkesgrupper. Undersökningen visade att högre utbildning ökar på reventivmedelsanvändningen, också då sociodemografisk bakgrundfaktorer, även utbildning och användning av preventivmedel på aggregatnivå, kontrollerades. Undersökningen antyder att utbildning på aggregatnivå inte ensam påverkar användningen av preventivmedel hos en individ. De sistnämnda resultaten var dock inte statistiskt signifikanta och kan inte generaliseras över namibiska kvinnor i allmänhet.

This thesis studies the impact of Fair Trade coffee during the coffee crisis of 1999-2004, focusing on Fair Trade producing cooperatives in Latin America and especially the economic impacts of belonging to the Fair Trade coffee network at a time when conventional coffee prices had plummeted to levels not seen in a hundred years. The rationale behind the research topic is to explore the possibilities of an alternative trading structure, as conventional production and the concomitant trade of primary products has historically been fraught with numerous problems, including declining terms of trade. A global value chain approach is used as a theoretical framework for the analysis of both the conventional and Fair Trade coffee markets, and is used to scrutinize the concentrations of power among the different actors involved in the path of coffee from producer to consumer. As four fifths of Fair Trade coffee was produced in Latin America at the time of the coffee crisis, four case studies were chosen, concerning cooperatives in Mexico and Nicaragua. These case studies are studied in depth to gain a deeper understanding of the involvement in the Fair Trade coffee network. The studies indicate that at the microlevel, belonging to the Fair Trade network did indeed lead to significantly higher coffee prices received by producers. While the Fair Trade price that farmers received was up to more than double the price of selling to conventional middlemen, some producing cooperatives only managed to sell parts of their harvest as Fair Trade coffee, thus limiting the impact of belonging to the Fair Trade network. At a macro level Fair Trade was a marginal actor, with some half a million growers being a part of the Fair Trade network at the time of the crisis, while approximately 25 million growers were involved in conventional coffee production, thus limiting the possible impact of Fair Trade coffee. Other results were less robust. One explicit goal of Fair Trade, promoting gender equality, was mostly dependent on the previous local gender relations, and no clear improvement was found in Fair Trade producing communities. Stemming migration was another explicit Fair Trade goal, and here there results indicate that in some cases Fair Trade actually enabled migration, as higher incomes can enable people to migrate. As Fair Trade has been in the vanguard for ethical trading and ethical sourcing, one of the largest potential impacts of Fair Trade is that of change in mainstream corporate culture through example and discussion. This is however a topic that warrants further research.

Fakultet: Statsvetenskapliga fakulteten vid Helsingfors universitet Utbildningsprogram: Magisterprogrammet i samhällsvetenskaper Studieinriktning: Journalistik och kommunikation Författare: Lotta Lindholm Arbetets namn: Coronarestriktioner och ojämställd idrott - En kvantitativ innehållsanalys av opinionstexter på sportsidorna i Hufvudstadsbladet Arbetets art: Magisteravhandling Månad och år: maj 2023 Sidantal: 48 + 7 sidor Nyckelord: Sportjournalistik, opinionstexter, genusfördelningar, covid-19 Handledare: Laszlo Vincze Förvaringsplats: Helsingfors universitet Sammandrag: Magisteravhandlingens syfte var att få fram vad Hufvudstadsbladet (Hbl) skriver om i deras opinionstexter på sportsidorna i papperstidningen. I avhandlingen ligger fokuset på år 2020, då covid-19, och restriktionerna som kom med pandemin, orsakade att idrotten stod stilla och tävlingar flyttades. Genusfördelningarna i opinionstexterna granskas, då Hbl enligt sina egna ord vill bidra till en mer jämställd idrottsvärld. Materialet för avhandlingen var alla tidningar från år 2020. En kvantitativ innehållsanalys genomfördes, för att se vad tidningen skrev om i de olika opinionstexterna och hur genusfördelningen såg ut. Resultaten för analysen visade att Hbl hade ett mångsidigt innehåll i opinionstexterna på sportsidorna, då ungefär 40 procent av alla opinionstexter var samhälleligt relevanta i stället för att endast handla om sport. De mer samhälleliga texterna handlade oftast om jämlikhetsfrågor eller covid-19. Genusfördelningen i opinionstexterna var ojämn, då endast en fjärdedel av texterna handlade om damidrott och över hälften om herridrott. Genusfördelningen varierade beroende på typen av opinion, samt idrottsgrenen texten handlade om. Texterna om lagsport hade till exempel betydligt mindre innehåll om damidrott än texterna om individuella grenar. Damidrott togs oftast upp i texter om jämlikhetsfrågor, medan det skrevs mer om herridrott i texter om ekonomi och hälsa. Resultaten diskuteras genom att se på genusfördelningar och samhälleligt innehåll. Avhandlingens resultat är överens med tidigare forskning, som Bruce, Howden et.al. (2010), Daum & Scherer (2017) och Laine, 2011, då genusfördelningen inte var jämn. Nästan hälften av opinionstexterna på sportsidorna handlade om samhälleliga teman, vilket är mer än i tidigare forskningar av bland annat Daum och Scherer (2017) och Laine (2011). Avhandlingens brister är ett begränsat och icke-slumpmässigt analysmaterial och att en del information föll bort då materialet måste bearbetas och kodas om. För framtiden kunde det vara intressant att göra en kvalitativ innehållsanalys eller en diskursanalys om opinionstexter på sportsidor, för att närmare undersöka hur olika samhälleliga kontexter tas upp och vilka ordval som görs.